WREXHAM find themselves five points adrift of second division safety today with just five matches left to avoid the drop into the Football League basement.

But manager Denis Smith is refusing to throw in the towel despite watching his side go down to a third successive league defeat at Cardiff on Friday evening.

"This result means we have to win more games," he said. "We are in the bottom two and we have to get out of the bottom four. That might mean we need just two wins if the others don't win any of their games and until it's impossible for us to get the points we need, we won't give up.

"There are games we can win; they are not all Cardiff away, which was always going to be difficult. According to some people, we shouldn't have bothered going down there because we were going to be beaten by between anywhere from five to 10 goals.

"People are saying we are down and if that's the case they'll be gloating but nothing is certain and the league goes to April 20."

The Bluebirds' 3-2 success was their third victory this season against their North Wales rivals and the Dragons' boss admitted that the better side had won.

"I don't think we can complain," he said. "We knew they would be difficult on setpieces, which they were, and we had worked on that but we are lacking height in the squad generally."

Two goals down after just 17 minutes, Wrexham gave themselves a glimmer of hope when Craig Faulconbridge pulled one back 11 minutes before the break but a superb effort from Danny Gabbidon early in the second half was good enough for the Ninian Park side, even though Hector Sam gave the scoreline a more respectable look with his 88th-minute goal.

"We knew we had to weather the storm early on but unfortunately we didn't," added Smith.

"If we could have done that it might have made a difference but once we pulled it back to 2-1, I thought we were in it. I told the players we needed to weather the first 20 minutes of the second half and then we could start to get at them but unfortunately we were caught by a great goal.

"Again we got back into it and in the end we could have snatched something."

Wrexham's late spell of pressure saw striker Lee Trundle claim a penalty when he went down under a challenge and Smith felt it was a valid shout. "From where I was it looked like a penalty but the referee didn't give it," he said.

"I had a word with him afterwards and he said the player slipped. The referee is always right, even if he's wrong. You have to learn to live with that and the way our season has been going means we are not going to get a great deal either way."

Smith said his decision to play Dan Bennett in front of the back four had been reasonably successful but confessed that Cardiff's physical presence had made the difference.

"I thought Dan did quite well in midfield in his first game there and the front two, considering the service they got, also did reasonably well. We know what weaknesses we have and we have to try and plan against it. Sometimes you get away with it but against Cardiff we didn't."

And asked about Cardiff's prospects of winning promotion through the second division playoffs, he added: "I'm not bothered to be honest. There's only one team up there I want to see promoted and that's Stoke, because they are my team.

"Apart from that, if Cardiff go up, good luck to them. They get good crowds, Sam Hammam has put in a lot of money and if they get up they can survive. It's a big city and why shouldn't we have a Welsh team in the first division?"